JOSEPH CONRAD: SITUATING IDENTITY IN A POSTCOLONIAL SPACE
H. SEWLALL, M.A. (cum laude), B.Ed. (Unisa)
Thesis submitted for the degree Philosophiae Doctor in English at North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus
PROMOTER: Prof. A. M. de Lange
May 2004 Potchefstroom
Josech Conrad at 54
.'(:,",:
JOSEPH CONR AD: SITUATING IDENTITY IN A POSTCOLONIAL SPACE
This thesis is premised on the notion, drawn mainly from a postcolonial
perspective (which is subsumed under the poststructuralist as well as the
postmodern), that Conrad's early writing reflects his abiding concern with how people
construct their identities vis-a-vis the otherlother in contact zones on the periphery
of empire far from the reach of social, racial and national identities that sustain them
at home.
It sets out to explore the problematic of race, culture, gender and identity in a
selection of the writer's early works set mainly, but not exclusively, in the East, using the theoretical perspective of postcoloniality as a point of entry, nuanced by the
configurations of spatiality which are factored into discourses about the otherlother.
Predicated mainly on the theoretical constructs about culture and identity espoused by Homi Bhabha, Edward Said and Stuart Hall, this study proposes the idea of an in-
between "third space" for the interrogation of identity in Conrad's work. This
postcolonial space, the central contribution of this thesis, frees his writings from the stranglehold of the Manichean paradigm in terms of which alterity or otherness is
perceived. Based on the hypothesis that identities are never fixed but constantly in
a state of performance, this project underwrites postcoloniality as a viable theoretical mode of intervention in Conrad's early works.
The wriier's early oeuvre yields richly to the contingency of our times in the early
twenty-first century as issues of race, gender and identity remain contested terrain. This study adopts the position that Conrad stood both inside and outside Victorian
cultural and ethical space, developing an ambivalent mode of representation which
recuperated and simultaneously subverted the entrenched prejudices of his age. Conceived proleptically, the characters of Conrad's early phase, traditionally
. . .
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dismissed as those of an apprentice writer, pose a constant challenge to how we view
alterity in our everyday lives.
Joseph Conrad identity postcolonial space third space colonial discourse race culture gender
4
CONRAD: POSlSlONERlNG VAN IDENTITEIT IN 'NPOSTKOLONIALE RUIMTE
Hierdie tesis is gebaseer op die voorveronderstelde idee, ontleen aan
'n
postkoloniale perspektief (wat subsimeer is onder die poststrukturalistiese en die
postmoderne perspektief), dat Conrad se vroee werk sy volgehoue belangstelling
reflekteer in hoe mense hulle identiteit konstrueer met betrekking tot die
anderIAnder in kontaksones op die periferie van empire ver buite die bereik van sosiale, rasse- en nasionale identiteite wat hulle op die tuisfront onderhou.
Die studie ondersoek die problematiek van ras, kultuur, geslag en identiteit in 'n seleksie van die skrywer se vroee werk wat afspeel in die Ooste, deur gebruik
te maak van die teoretiese perspektief van postkolonialiteit as vertrekpunt, genuanseer deur die konfigurasies van ruimtelikheid wat gefaktoriseer word in
diskoerse orntrent die anderlAnder. Hierdie studie, wat hoofsaaklik gegrond is op die teoretiese konstrukte rondom kultuur en identiteit soos voorgestaan deur Homi
Bhabha, Edward Said en Stuart Hall, stel die idee van 'n tussenin 'derde ruimte" vir interrogasie van identiteit in Conrad se werkvoor. Die postkoloniale ruimte, die
hoofbydraevan hierdie verhandeling, maak sy werke 10s uit die wurggreep van die Manicheaanse paradigma in terme w a a ~ a n alteriteit of andersheid beskou word.
Gebaseer op die hipotese dat identiteite nooit gevestig is nie, maar voortdurend in 'n staat van vervulling verkeer, onderskryf hierdie projek postkolonialiteit as 'n
gepaste teoretiese wyse van ingryping in Conrad se vroee werke.
Die skrywer se vroee oeuvre lewer 'n geil bydrae tot die onsekerhede van ons
tyd in die een en twintigste eeu waar kwessies van ras, geslag en identieit steeds omstrede terrein bly. Hierdie studie neem die standpunt in dat Conrad binne
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wat 'n ambivalente wyse van voorstelling ontwikkel het wat die verskanste
vooroordele van sy tydperk aangevuur en ook tegelykertyd omvergewerp het. Prolepties gelees hou die karakters van Conrad se vroee werk, wat tradisioneel
afgemaak is as die van 'n aspirant skrywer, 'n voortdurende uitdaging in vir ons
beskouing van alteriteit in ons alledaagse lewe.
Joseph Conrad identiteit postkoloniale ruimte derde spasie koloniale redevoering ras kulturele geslag
This study is the culmination of various influences - both direct and indirect, recent and remote, material and otherwise -which have impacted incrementally
on my academic life.
To say that this thesis might never have seen the light of day were it not for my
promoter, Professor Attie de Lange, would be no exaggeration. It was he who
responded immediately to my overture when I expressed an interest in the early
writings of Joseph Conrad to a few departments of English studies in 2001. His invitational approach, conjoined with his modest demeanour which belies his
stature in the international community of Conrad scholars, was conducive to a congenial working relationship. Subsequently, his graceful interventions and his
spontaneous sharing of his resources contributed to the momentum of this study. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the role of other academics with whom I interacted, albeit briefly, at some stage. For initiating me to the work of Homi K. Bhabha and the rigours of theory, I am beholden to Professor Rory Ryan of Rand Afrikaans University whom I met in the mid-1990s. On that same occasion, Professor Dirk Klopper, presently at Stellenbosch University, lent me his
new copy of Bhabha's The Location of Culture. I am thankful for such a magnanimous gesture extended to a complete stranger. I also recall with fondness the late Professor Leon Hugo of Unisa, who encouraged me to proceed
with doctoral studies.
No project of this nature can be undertaken without the back-up of a good
library. In this regard I am thankful to the staff of the Ferdinand Postma Library for their courteous and efficient service, and especially to Ms Gerda van Rooyen for assisting with database searches, and Ms Cora Bezuidenhout of Interlibrary
Loans for tracking down rare publications. I am also grateful to Dawie Malan, the English subject librarian of Unisa, for his friendly assistance at all times.
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A word of acknowledgement to the distinguished panel of examiners, both local and overseas, would not be out of place. These are critical readers who play
a crucial, if sometimes anonymous and thankless, role.
Finally, I am indebted to my ever-supportive family, my wife Saroj and my children, Nivesh and Seshni, forthe unlimited space they have always allowed me
during a lifespan in which career interests, combined with part-time studies, often
took precedence over domestic felicity.
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my late parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sewlall
Gooljar of Durban who, despite their humble station in life, impressed upon me the
need to pursue an education in the face of adversity.
This study was conducted under the auspices of the Research Focus Area of the
School of Languages at the Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University, and funded by the National Research Foundation. The views expressed are those of
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JPREFACEI
1. Texts Used
Except for Lord Jim and Youth and Two Other Stories in the Doubleday Edition,
published in 1920 and 1927 respectively, the citations from Conrad's works come
from the Dent Collected Edition, London 1946-55. The pagination in the Doubleday
series corresponds with that in the Dent Edition. The abbreviations of these texts in
the thesis are as follows:
AF APR LJ N 01 SL TLS TR TS TU Y Almayer's Folly A Personal Record Lord Jim: A Tale
Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard An Outcast of the Islands
The Shadow-Line: A Confession
'Twixt Land and Sea: Three Tales ("Freya of the Seven Isles") The Rescue: A Romance of the Shallows
Typhoon & Other Stones ("Falk", "Amy Foster") Tales of Unrest ("Karain", "An Outpost of Progress") Youth and Two Other Stories (Heart of Darkness)
2. Modification to MLA Style Manual
While this thesis adheres to the MLA Style Manual by Joseph Gibaldi (Second
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Where an author has been cited in the thesis, the date of publication of the text has
also been given, for example: (Hampson 1998,3). Where the author's name appears
in close proximity to the citation, the name is omitted, for example, (1998, 3).
3. Original Date of Publication
In citations, the original date of publication of a text is indicated in square brackets,
for example: (Lefebvre 1991[1974], 23). Under Works Cited", the original date of
publication is indicated in round brackets:().
4. otherlOther
According to Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin in Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies
(1998, 170), the word "other" with the lower case "on refers to the colonized others
who are marginalized by imperial discourse. Where the subject desires to exist "in
the gaze of the Other", such as in the Freudian and Lacanian notion of the mother or
father figure (170), the upper case
"0"
is used. In this thesis, the term "otherlother"Chapter One Two Three Four Five Six Works Cited
Introduction: Contextualization, Problem Statement, Aims and Methodology
Configuring Identities: Savages, Simpletons
and Others
Race and Miscegenation in Alrnayefs Folly
A Story of an Eastern River
Page
Transgressing Boundaries: An Outcast of the 110
Islands
The Boys' Club
-
Lord Jim: A Tale and The Rescue: A Romance of the ShallowsConclusion: Situating Joseph Conrad in a Postcolonial Space
INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTUALIZATION, PROBLEM STATEMENT, AIMS AND METHODOLOGY
"Lay him [Dain Maroola] there. He was a Kafir and the
son of a dog, and he was the white man's friend. He
drank the white man's strong water [. . .] That I have
seen myself." (AF, 104)
The taking up of any one position, within a specific discursive form, in a particular historical conjuncture, is
thus always problematic
-
the site of both fixity andfantasy. It provides a colonial " i d e n t i i that is played out
- like all fantasies of originality and origination - in the
face and space of the disruption and threat from the
heterogeneity of other positions. (Homi K. Bhabha 1994,
77)
Usually the stereotype is a sad affair, since it is constituted by a necrosis of language, a prosthesis brought in to fill a hole in writing. Yet at the same time it cannot but occasion a huge burst of laughter: it takes itself seriously, believes itself to be closer to the truth
because [it is] indifferent to its nature as language. It is
at once comy and solemn. (Roland Barthes 1977,199)
How people perceive themselves and others, especially those who look different from them and do not share the same beliefs and values, has been, and continues to be, the major impetus for the ontology of literary and philosophical discourse. Throughout the ages, different cultures have sought ways to account
2
for the diversity and the "otherness", or alterity, of others. The problematic of
racial otherness and stereotyping is not peculiar to our modern age, but one that goes back to our ancestral times. Even the civilized ancient Greeks and Romans
had to contend with their "barbarian" otherlother. Over time, people have come
to construct themselves along either religious, racial, geographic, ethnic or
national criteria. Medieval Christianty, for example, explained the phenomenon of the black "other" by resorting to the "Biblical association of blackness with the
descendants of Ham, Noah's bad son, and with the forces of evil" (Loomba 1998, 105). In his seminal publication, Orientalism (1995[1978], 332), Edward Said
gives expression to the arbitrary nature of the construction of alterity:
The construction of identity [.
.
.] involves establishing opposites and "others" whose actuality is always subject to the continuous interpretationand re-interpretation of their differences from "us". Each age and society re-creates its "Others". Far from a static thing then, identity of self or of
"other" is a much worked-over historical, social, intellectual, and political
process that takes place as a context involving individuals and institutions in all societies.
With conquests came colonization, and Western and Arab nations increasingly made contact with people of different hues, hair textures, cultures and
customs. Such physical and mental contact across cultural spaces was never an auspicious one for the colonized other. Those who did not subscribe to the
dominant religious beliefs of the conquering Christians and Arabs were referred
to as pagans or heathens by the former, and kafirs (infidels) by the latter (Concise
Oxford Dictionary, I Oth edition). In his polemical tract, The Wretchedof the Earth, Frantz Fanon has memorably characterized the world of the colonial adventurer as a "Manichaeistic world, a world of statues: the statue of the general who carried
3
is sure of itself, which crushes with its stones the backs flayed by whips: this is the
colonial world" (1 967[196l], 40).
The notion of identity (subjectivity or subject formation) has always been constitutive of the provenance of literary discourse and the raison d'gtre for
studying serious literature. Even before the seventeenth century French
philosopher Rene Decartes set the benchmark of Enlightenment thinking on the nature of the subject with the famous proposition, "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think,
therefore I am), literature in the Western world, going back to the time of the Greeks and Romans, was centred on the issue of what it means "to be", and moreover, what it means to be human (albeit in a world of deities who themselves
were not exempt from human weaknesses such as vanity, envy and pride!). Jonathan Culler (1 997, I 10) avers:
Literature has always been concerned with questions about identity, and literary works sketch answers, implicitly or explicitly, to these questions.
Narrative literature especially has followed the fortunes of characters as
they define themselves and are defined by various combinations of their past, the choices they make, and the social forces that act upon them.
In the early twenty-first century, the contingency of the issues of race, culture,
imperialism and gender continues to give warrant to the study of Joseph Conrad
(1857-1924), especially his early writings. When Goonetilleke (1990, I I) poses the question, "In what respects does [Conrad] matter to us?", an appropriate
rejoinder might be the words of the eminent Polish scholar and Conradian,
Zdzistaw Najder: "He saw, a hundred years ago, the shape of things lasting, and of things to come. He identified problems and perils which are still with us today.
We need him" (1997, 187). A postcoloniallpostmodern reading of Conrad will restore to his early works their prescience to our times. Largely neglected until
4
traditionally been regarded as minor studies in the adventure genre set in the
exotic East. Albert J. Guerard's assessment of Conrad's first two novels typifies
the early trend of Conradian scholarship: "In Almayer's Follyand An Outcast ofthe
Islands we follow the interesting drama of a novelist searching for an elusive and
central theme (the character of the vulnerable romantic idealist) and not wholly
finding it" (1 958, 69). Contrariwise, this study takes the stance that this phase of Conrad's writing affords crucial insights into his lifelong preoccupation with the
problematic of identity. Based on the writer's first experiences of different nations
and peoples while he was a master mariner, long before he settled into the life of
the English gentility, the early works constitute an important chronicle of his excursions into intercultural subjectivity.
Predicated on a selection of early novels as well as short fiction, this research
sets out to investigate the problematic of race, culture and identity, using the theoretical perspective of postcolonialismlpostmodernism as a point of entry,
nuanced by the modalities of space and spatiality. The works of short fiction to be examined are: "Karain" and "An Outpost of Progress" (in Tales of Unrest,
l898), and "Falk" and "Amy Foster" (in Typhoon and Other Stories, 1903). The
novels to be examined are: Almayer's Folly: A Story of an Eastern River (1895),
An Outcast of the Islands (1
896),
Lord Jim: A Tale (1 900), and The Rescue: ARomance of the Shallows (an interrupted project, laid aside in 1898, as Conrad
tells us in his Author's Note to the novel in the Dent Collected Edition [1949, vii],
and completed in 1920). The thesis will argue that the author's early writings, mainly those set in the Malay Archipelago, far from being the inchoate product of
an apprentice writer, constitute an important dimension of his enduring concern with the issues of intercultural contact, imperialist discourse and the formation of
the self in relation to the otherlother. That such issues have a prescience for us
in the twenty-first century is not in doubt, as Fincham and Hooper (1996, xvii) affirm:
5
Reading Conrad self-reflexively is an antidote not only to the insularity of
Eurocentrism, but also to the complacency into which cultural studies can
degenerate. Culture cannot be theorized in isolation from politics, and theoretical perspectives explored in the academy can only be valuable to
the extent that they influence the way people think and behave.
Any research on Conrad must be indebted to the prodigious scholarship that has accrued since the writer's death in 1924. A survey of such a nature, of
necessity, also has to be selective. A convenient point of orientation would be F.
R. Leavis's The Great Tradition (1 972[1948]) which places the Polish-born Conrad in the august ranks of George Eliot and Henry James, who have since then
enjoyed the prestige of belonging to the pantheon of English literature. A formidable reader in the methodology of the New Criticism, Leavis regarded
fidelity to artistic form, coupled to a high moral seriousness, as the touchstone of
literary merit. Whilst he was generous in his evaluation of Conrad's mature
oeuvre, which enjoys canonical status in world literature, he makes short shrift of the early works, dismissing them in fewer than ten lines as "excessively adjectival
studies in the Malayan exoticn and not easy "to re-read" (218). There is a studied silence about the relationship of the protagonists across racial and cultural divides.
Race, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1986,
5),
has become a trope ofultimate, irreducible difference between cultures, linguistic groups, or adherents of specific belief systems which, more often than not, also have fundamentally
opposed economic interests. The growth of canonical literatures, posits Gates,
was coterminous with the prominence of the New Criticism and Practical Criticism
of the early twentieth century. Gates problematizes the relationship between race and the aesthetics of New Critical thought as follows:
6
How did the pronounced concern for the language of the text, which
defined the Practical Criticism and New Criticism movements, affect this
category called race in the reading of literature? Race, along with all sorts of other "unseemly" or "untoward" notions about the composition of
the literary work of art, was bracketed or suspended. Within these
theories of literature to which we are all heir, texts were considered
canonical insofar as they elevated the cultural; Eliot's simultaneous
ordering of the texts which comprised the Western tradition rendered
race implicit [. . .] One not heir to these traditions was, by definition, of another race. (1986, 2-3)
It would have been very interesting to know what Leavis thought about the
relationships of people across racial, cultural and national divides in the early writings of Conrad. Whatever he thought or felt about them, the point is that they
do not merit consideration against his measure of literariness. Whilst early critics
have accorded Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands and short fiction such
as "Amy Fostern and "An Outpost of Progress" some importance as intertextual signposts to some of the later themes of the writer's mature oeuvre, these texts
have generally been read in the mode inaugurated by Leavis.
Guerard, in contrast to Leavis, devotes considerable space to the two early Conrad novels, in keeping with his stated intention which is to express and define
his response to a writer he has "long liked and admired" (1958,
1).
It soon becomes manifest, however, that the kind of reading we will expect wouldsanction the methodology of New Criticism in its insistence on form, technique and
artistic integrity
-
perspectives consonant with the grand narratives of Western logocentrism. The term "logocentric" designates the theoretical space of "whitemythology" which Robert J. C. Young endorses as a metaphysics which "reflects the culture of the West: the white man takes his own mythology, Indo-European
7
call Reason" (Young 1990, 7). Finding in Almayer's Folly, an "impressive first
novel" with no "centre of interest" (1958, 71), Guerard goes on to synopsize the novel as "the unconstructed dreaming of a small real world: a world with its richly
evoked daily life and its infinitely complicated politics" (71). Coming closer to the
thematics of the novel, Guerard alludes to the "Malayan scene with its intuitions
into the savage mind, the struggle of Almayer and his native wife for the mind of their half-caste daughter, of the love affair of Nina and Dain Maroola with Almayer
as the jealous rival" (72). Guerard's summing up of the novel is reminiscent of the
publisher's description of it at the back of some editions of the Dent Collection:
"Almayer's Folly is Conrad's first novel, in which amidst exotic Malayan scenes
and dramatic happenings the once ambitious but now ineffectual trader moves
inexorably to ruin" (The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' and Typhoon & Other Stories,
1950, 281). Likewise, several other novels set in the exotic East have been precised in this dramatic fashion. Guerard, finding the second novel, An Outcast
of the Islands, to be more cohesive than its predecessor, even goes so far as to
comment on the Willems/A'issa relationship. Viewing the passion as "corrupt"
(80), he concludes: "It is strong enough to conquer racial pride [.
.
.] But the fascination is presently mingled with disgust, and in the end leads to sexualfailure" (80).
The early studies of Conrad's work by influential critics such as Thomas Moser (1 957), Albert Guerard (1 958), Jocelyn Baines (1 959), Frederick R. Karl
(1 960) and Leo Gurko (1 962), may be regarded as scholarship in the Leavisean New Critical tradition which tended to be dismissive of Conrad's apprentice works.
Frederick Karl, for example, reminds us that An Outcast of the Islands began as
a short story, which accounts for its "thinness and deficiency of substance" (1 960, 100). Of its protagonist, Willems, Karl says that he is "a study of a man with vain
pretensions brought to isolation, sensoryexhaustion, and personal impotence, like the pitiful Almayer at the end of Conrad's first novel" (101). Karl identifies the
encapsulates it in terms such as Willems's "passion for A'issa, the native seductress" which leaves him "doomed as a human being, cut off from civilization
and civilized feeling" (101). What Karl means by civilization and civilized feeling
can only be left to conjecture. Leo Gurko echoes Karl, but proceeds to introduce
nature as a trope against which men such as Almayer and Willems are destined
to fail: "The corrupt and corrupting jungle becomes the perfect ecological setting for Willems' fall" (1 97911 962],59). Two pages later, he continues in a similar vein:
"Nature, however, is seldom so tender. The novel being a study of degradation,
and particularly sexual degradation, we see nature chiefly in her fecundity, her teeming regeneration and decomposition" (61).
In the intervals between these early works on the one hand, and Norman
Sherty's biographical documentary Conrad's Eastern World (1966) on the other,
emerged two seminal publications which plotted the future coordinates of
Conradian criticism right up to our time. The first of these was Eloise Knapp Hay's The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad A Critical Study (1 981 [ I 963]), followed by
Avrom Fleishman's Conrad's Politics: Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of
Joseph Conrad (1967). Hay confronts the "unequivocal handling of ambiguous
material and ideologically debatable questions" (241) in Conrad, but her emphasis
falls on the overtly "political" works such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret
Agent, the one exception being The Rescue. Fleishman's book is more widely encompassing than Hay's, showing the importance of Conrad's lesser-known
writings to the political vision of the author. Occasionally, Fleishman lapses into
reductivity such as: "In the Asian tales, apart from the sexually attractive natives
like Dain Moroola [sic] and Dain Waris [.
.
.] there are only ungovernable women [..
.] rapacious chiefs [..
.] homicidal maniacs [..
.] and crafty sneaks [..
.]" (95). Apart from a few such contentions one might raise against Hay and Fleishman,there can hardly be a modern reading of Conrad, including this thesis, without the weighty influence of their milestone scholarship.
R. Schwarz's Conrad: Almayer's Folly to Under Western Eyes (1 980) and Benita Parry's Conrad and Imperialism: ldeological Boundaries and Visionary Frontiers
(1983). In his reading of the early novels, Schwarz combines a biographical perspective with a psychological one. An important insight he provides is that
Conrad, in creating Lingard, uses the "biblical concept of symbolic paternity in
which God the father or a patriarch confers his blessings almost as if by magic"
(5). Thus, both Almayer and Willems depend on Tom Lingard for such a symbolic
paternity. However, on the subject of sexuality Schwarz's criticism is
compromised by reductive statements such as: "[.
.
.] Conrad's idealization of heterosexual love is undermined by his obsessive treatment of Victorian sexual taboos: miscegenation, incest, and adultery. That sexuality [..
.] reflects his unconscious discomfort with the subject of sex" (1980, 7-8); or, "The catalytic effect of his passion for Aissa upon his repressed libidinous needs leads toWillems's atavistic behaviour" (8). What is characteristic of Conradian criticism from the commentary of Leavis, who is largely silent on the early literary output of
Conrad, and Guerard up to Schwarz in the 1980% is how these scholars
interpreted the writer from the space of the dominant, patriarchal, Western male
critic whose empathy is directed at the white male protagonists who become victims of their corrupting passion in equally appropriate environments where
nature and culture are posited as diametrically opposed binaries.
Ian Watt's in-depth critical study, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century (1980),
published in the same year as Schwarz's book, possesses certain lineaments of
early Conradian scholarship. While he devotes an entire chapter to Almayer's
Folly, focussing mainly on its male protagonist, his treatment of Nina is
perfunctory. An Outcast of the Islands is dismissed in fewer than two pages even
though he regards this as a "more successful novel [and] more consciously
literary" (73). The female protagonist of An Outcast of the Islands becomes an
appendage to Peter Willems: "In this void, Willems succumbs to a beautiful Malay
10
situation becomes impossible, and Nssa finally shoots him" (73). This
representation of Aissa in the climactic ending belies the sequence of events in
the novel and downplays Willems's culpability in his own death.
Benita Parry's trenchant critique of empire, Conrad and Imperialism:
ideological Boundaries and Visionary Frontiem, based on a selection of mainly
canonical texts, marks a significant departure from what she labels "ontological
meditations" and "psychological explorations" (1983, 6). This thesis will engage critically with some of her views on The Rescue, which have influenced Robert
Hampson's own reading of this text. Her work anticipates the direction of
Conradian scholarship towards the end of the twentieth century and into the new
millennium. Parry's reading against the grain interrogates the predominantly
empiricist perspectives which deploy formalist procedures that tend to suppress the politics of gender, race and culture in Conrad.
One of the first rigorously-conceived engagements with Conrad's early women characters was by Ruth Nadelhaft in a compilation edited and introduced by
Harold Bloom in 1986. Highly critical of the tendency in previous studies to ignore Conrad's earlier writings, Nadelhaft embarks on a spirited defence of the Malay
women in these texts: "Consistently, the men identify themselves [.
.
.] with Western imperialism (in the guise of 'civilization') and against savagery. And, justas consistently, it remains for the women to offer in their characterization the
humanity that goes beyond Western civilization" (1986, 161). Nadelhaft was to pursue her feminist reading with even greater verve in her full-length study,
Joseph Conrad (1 991), which failed to impress at least one male Conradian, John
Stape, who dismissed the book as "unconvincing in its revisionist programme"
(1996, 252).
In the same year as Benita Parry's project, Edward Said's landmark
publication, The World, The Text and The Crific, demonstrated new ways of
reading Conrad from a social and cultural perspective, based on insights from
11
particular time is a conjuncture of ideas past and present, contemporary Conradian scholarship has benefited from poststructuralist and postmodern
thought. Works which have profited by insights from recent theory include those such as Bette London's The Appropriated Voice: Narrative Authority in Conrad,
Foster and Woolf (1 990), Bruce Henricksen's Nomadic Voices: Conrad and the
Subject of Narrative (1992), Robert Hampson's Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and
ldentity (1992), and Christopher Gogwilt's The Invention of the West: Joseph
Conrad and the Double-Mapping of Europe and Empire (1995). Enriched by
perspectives drawn from poststructuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism,
all four of these studies, in complementing one another, have annexed new territories in Conrad studies.
Bette London's work, energized by "Chinua Achebe's famous 1975 attack" (1990, 39), questions the ontology of truth and experience in literary expression,
thus challenging traditional interpretations of Heart of Darkness. Her aim is to
examine how narrative enacts the construction of cultural identity, especially the
identity of the white male-speaking subject. Bruce Henricksen, acknowledging the similarities between his work and London's in his Introduction, reads Conrad
"from the perspective of [the] recent paradigm shift, from the point of view not only
of current narrative theory [. . .] but also of such poststructural and postmodern concerns as the relationship between subjectivity and the constitutive discourses
of society [.
.
.I" (2). London's and Henricksen's eclectic approach has much to recommend it, and it could be proftably transposed to a reading of Conrad's earlyoeuvre which has not been the focus of their study.
If the Western male critic, with a few notable exceptions such as John H.
Hicks and Royal Roussel, referred to by Schwarz (1980, 11). has demurred at
giving due weight to the female characters in Conrad's early works, as well as the issues of ethnic and cultural subjectivity, then Robert Hampson's publication,
Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and ldentity (1992), premised on the existential
imbalance. His chapter on Almayer's Folly is titled "Two Prototypes of Betrayal".
Using the trope of betrayal, Hampson explores the nuances of this trope as it
pertains to Almayer and Nina. Hampson concludes that in accepting Dain
Maroola as her husband, Nina "betray[s] part of herself' (1992, 31). The notion
of betrayal is problematic in this context. Nina is half-white and half-Malay.
Whoever she chooses as a husband, she will always have a split identity. (In fairness to Hampson, it must be stated at this point that he was to modify his
opinion on Nina's identity in his later project, Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph
Conrad's Malay Fiction published in 2000, in which he employs the structures of
postcolonial theory.) Having given Nina equal attention as Almayer, Hampson
proceeds to a consideration of An Outcast of the Islands. If one expects to find
an equal amount of textual space devoted to Aksa one would be disappointed.
Consonant with the key terms of his book, "betrayal" and "identity", the writer focuses on Willems as the victim of his passion, and the gunshot that kills him
(fired by Aiissa), "is only a formality" (1992, 66). Hampson continues, "His ontological insecurity has led him to a system of defences that work to produce
the destruction of the self they were supposed to protect" (66). Like Ian Watt, Hampson downplays the role of Willems in the tragic climax and projects him as
the victim of Aiissa.
Following in the tradition of London and Henricksen is Christopher Gogwilt's
The Invention of the West: Joseph Conrad and the Double-Mapping of Europe
and Empire (1 995). Situating his work in the context of the shift from a "European
to a Western identityn (I), Gogwilt admits that he has "not rigorously theorized (3) his project which explores the relation between Conrad'sfiction and the "historicity
of the term 'the West"' (3) by linking literary analysis with debates on intellectual
history. Whilst marshalling the insights of a spectrum of twentieth-centurythinkers
ranging from Genette to Derrida and Foucault, he maintains that "their theoretical claims form part of an unresolved dialogue about the place of critical practice in
Ice the 1990s th
~ ~ ~~
ere has be Sin
13
!en an increasing interest shown in the "postcolonial" tenor of Conrad's work as evinced by the steady stream of
conference papers as well as books and journal articles on issues of empire, race
and gender. Following Heliena Krenn's Conrad's Lingard Trilogy: Empire, Race,
and Women in the Malay Novels (1990) and D. C. R. A. Goonetilleke's Joseph
Conrad: Beyond Culture and Background (1990), two notable collections of
essays in this field have been edited by Robert D. Hamner (Joseph Conrad: Third
World Perspectives,l990) and South African academics, Gail Fincham and Myrtle
Hooper (UnderPostcolonialEyes: Joseph Conrad AfferEmpire, 1996). Hamner's endeavour is of central importance to postcolonial perspectives on Conrad's
writings set in Malaysia and Africa. Sub-titled "Third World Perspectives", at a
time when the term "postcolonial" as a critical postulate was relatively unknown, the book is a compendium of invigorating essays composed mainly in the 1970s
interrogating the author from a postcolonial perspective. Two writers from this volume who will be adduced later in this thesis are Lloyd Fernando, who published
his essay on Conrad's "Eastern Expatriates" in 1976 in PMLA, and Juliet McLauchlan, whose essay on Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands first
appeared in 1979 in Conradiana. Pre-dating the bold initiative of Benita Parry,
who does not cite Fernando or McLauchlan in her critique of 1983, these scholars
mark a significant departure from the critique of Douglas Hewitt, Albert Guerard
and Jocelyn Baines, whose views are brought under severe scrutiny.
McLauchlan, for example, writes: "More disastrously, the most influential critics, notably Thomas Moser and Albert Guerard, have not only found the love stories
unconvincing but [.
.
.] perfect examples of Conrad's supposed loss of conscious control of his material" (1990[1979], 79). By recuperating some of these pioneering essays, Robert Hamner, as if by default, has made a signalcontribution to postcolonial studies in Conrad.
Located within a postcolonial paradigm, Andrea White's Joseph Conradand
construction, a dismantling, of the imperial myth as formulated by [.
.
.] fiction traditionally" (194). Another full-length study of Conrad's Malayan writings hasbeen undertaken by Linda Dryden, titled Joseph Conrad and the Imperial Romance (2000). Dryden posits that Conrad uses the romantic genre of imperial
literature to subvert the ideals of imperialist adventurers. As helpful as this study
is in viewing Conrad from a different perspective, at times it tends to echo some
of the scholars of the 1960s who perceive the male characters as victims of the allure of Eastern women. Dryden also raises a contentious issue when she
makes the observation that in An Outcast of the Islands there "lingers [.
.
.] the disturbing suggestion that Conrad actually endorses the notion of racial purity"(82). Concluding this selective purview of critical works on Conrad, two recent compilations deserve mention. In the wake of an international conference on Conrad hosted jointly by South African Universities of Potchefstroom and Cape
Town in March-April 1998, two volumes have been published in the series Conrad: Eastern and Western Perspectives under the stewardship of General
Editor Wieslaw Krajka. These are titled Conrad at the Millennium: Modernism,
Postmodernism, Postcolonialism (2001), edited by Gail Fincham and Attie de
Lange, and Conrad in Africa: New Essays on "Heart of Darkness" (2002), edited
by Attie de Lange and Gail Fincham. As the titles of these monographs suggest, the essays in these volumes demonstrate new readings of Conrad from a range
of perspectives, from archival scholarship to cultural geography and film studies,
subsumed under the broad categories of modernism, postmodernism and postcoloniality.
In the light of the foregoing literature survey which traces Conradian studies
from the New Critical reading of Leavis and Guerard to the poststructuralist and
postmodern perspectives of London, Henricksen, Gogwilt and Hampson, this thesis extends, explores and revises previous scholarship on the early literary
production of the writer from the theoretical space afforded by postcoloniality. In pursuance of this objective, this project sets itself three basic aims: Firstly, it will
15
consider the potential of postcolonialism as a theoretical construct and a viable
mode of critical intervention. Secondly, it will explore a selection of Conrad's early short fiction as well as novels to show how attitudes to race and alterity
(otherlother) are integral to the construction of identity and how these are
construed proleptically. And finally, it will demonstrate how the modalities of
space are imbricated ideologically, socially, sexually, politically, racially and
religiously in configuring subjectivity. Having problematized the notion of postcolonialitylpostmodernism as a theoretical construct, this thesis will underwrite
its viability as a critical apparatus to explore Conrad's early works set in the Orient,
thus affirming the relevance of these writings to the fraught question of subjectivity in modern times.
The concept of a "postcolonial space", which derives from Homi Bhabha's
postulate of a "postmodern space" (1994, 212), articulates on several nodes. It
anchors, firstly, the idea of the temporal and geographical spatiality of Conrad in relation to our time and space, speaking to us from Europe more than a century
after the publication of his major writings. Secondly, it charts both the geographic and metaphoric odyssey of the author and his protagonists, who position
themselves on the periphery of empire in remote, exotic locales, only to disrupt the
gaze of the metropolis by interrogating some of its assumptions about the
otherlother. Thirdly, it functions as a "space-clearing gesture", as Appiah has termed it (1997[1991],
63).
In other words, it provides a contemporary nexus foran exploration of Conrad in the context of some of the most pertinent concerns of the early twenty-first century, such as race, gender and identity. Finally, as I have inflected the term, a postcolonial space denotes an indeterminate, psychological
"third space" in which subjects construct themselves continually, occupying what
Homi Bhabha refers to as a "liminal space" which opens up the possibility of a "cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed
hierarchy" (1994, 4).
Victorian cultural and ethical space, developing an ambivalent mode of
representation which simultaneously recuperated and subverted Victorian
ideological preoccupations in an attempt to make the reader question his or her assumptions in an effort to "see" (to echo the writer's famous aesthetic manifesto
in the Preface to The Niggerof the 'Narcissus', 1950, x). Locating itself within the
perspectival space of postcolonialityl postmodernism, this study will contend that
Conrad's early projects continually dismantle the binary opposites implied in the logocentric Enlightenment worldview which equated the "good" with the West and
"evil" with the dark, brooding jungles of the East
-
images of the Orient commonly adduced in early Conradian scholarship.This research is premised on the hypothesis that identities are never stable
or fixed in templates that can be replicated on demand; that in traversing social,
cultural and psychological spaces between "us" and "them", the West and the
East, subjects create and recreate themselves continually. The subject of interculturallinterracial contiguity serves to pit race against race, and culture
against culture, through a process of doubling and splitting which manifests itself
in the aporetic spaces of the early works.
As theories construct themselves eclectically and intertextually, either
confirming, qualifying, refuting, interrogating, or modifying previous reading strategies, it would be difficult to confine this research to a single hermeneutic
practice. Whilst it would primarily be context-based, relying upon a close
engagement with the text, it would be informed by a postcoloniallpostmodern
perspective. The term "text" must be viewed not simply as a literary artefact but in the wider discursive sense as envisaged by Barthes (1977, 164): "[The] Text is
that socialspace which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the
enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory
of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing".
The notion of a "postcolonial space", the central contribution of this research,
writings of Conrad using the structuring devices of postcoloniality/postmodernism.
As a theoretical construct the term "postcolonial" remains an embattled signifier
as attested to by Ashcroft et al. (1989), Adam and Tiffin (1991), Williams and
Chrisman (1993), Mongia (1997), Moore-Gilbert et al. (1997), Loomba (1998), Chrisman and Parry (2000) and Ashcrofl (2001). In his first two editions of A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, published in 1992 and 1994
respectively, Jeremy Hawthorn does not mention the word "postcoloniality", although "poststructuralism" and "postmodernism"' were common currency by
then. It is only in the third edition, in 1998, that the term enters the glossary. In the Introduction, Hawthorn states, "This third edition contains many new terms,
including a fair number associated with the increasingly influential area of
postcolonialism" (1998, vii). In the entry itself, which is over a page in length, he
refers to postcolonialism as
[. . .]probably the most fashionable, varied, and rapidly growing of critical or theoretical groupings [. . .]the term can be used in a relatively neutral descriptive sense to refer to literature emanating from or dealing with the
peoples and cultures of lands which have emerged from colonial rule [.
.
.] but it can also be used to imply a body of theory or as an attitude towards that which is studied. (265)Hawthorn concludes the entry with the observation that the term has created
institutional space for the study of a wide variety of "non-Canonical" literatures, and has given academics a focus for the development of "new areas of study"
(266). Whilst this thesis, in the main, sanctions his assertion that postcoloniality
is an "attitude" to what is studied, as well as an "institutional space", it is in contention with the argument that the term "postcoloniality" is more acceptable
because it carries "no fixed ideological baggage as does Orientalism" (266). With
18
discourse is neither neutral nor free of ideology judging from the polemics on the
epistemological status of "postcoloniality" by scholars engaged in this field.
Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) which is considered to be the defining
moment in postcolonial discourse, in the opinion of Williams and Chrisman "single-handedly inaugurates a new area of academic inquiry: colonial discourse,
also referred to as colonial discourse theory or colonial discourse analysisV(l 993,
5). As a critique of the West's construction of the Orient, Said's text does not even feature the terms "postcolonial" or "postmodern" in its Index. It is only in the
Affenvord to the 1995 printing of the book that Said reflects on the appropriation
of Orientalism by postcolonial discourse: "Both post-colonialism and post-
modernism emerged as related topics of engagement and investigation during the 1980s and, in many instances, seemed to take account of such texts as
Orientalism as antecedents" (1995[1978], 350). Back then Said envisioned the
role of "post-colonial studies [as] a re-reading of the canonical cultural works, not to demote or somehow dish dirt on them, but to re-investigate some of their
assumptions, going beyond the stifling hold on them by some version of the master-slave binary dialectic" (352-353).
The earliest sustained use of the term "postcolonial" in a literary-theoretical context was by Ashcroft et al. in their ground-breaking work. The Empire Writes
Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures (1 989). Proposing that
"postcolonialism" should be seen as a "reading strategy" (189) in order to
reconstruct "so-called canonical texts through alternative reading practices" (1 89), the writers conclude:
Post-colonial criticism appears to be following two major paths at present:
on the one hand, via the reading of specific post-colonial texts and the
effects of their production in and on specific social and historical contexts, and on the other, via the "revisioning" of received tropes and modes such
in the light of post-colonial discursive practices. (194)
In accord with Ashcrofl et al., Stephen Slemon finds the term most useful not when it is used to denote a post-independence historical period but rather "when
it locates a specifically anti- or post-colonial discursive (author's emphases)
purchase in culture, one which begins in the moment that colonial power inscribes
itself onto the body and space of its Others" (1991, 3).
Jeremy Hawthorn's helpful gloss on the term "postcoloniality" should not
obscure the vexed arguments that pre-date his 1998 edition and which continue
to rage. Notable among the detractors have been Kwame Anthony Appiah, Arif Dirlik, Aijaz Ahmad and even Gayatri Spivak, a translator of Derrida, whose
essays have featured in several postcolonial readers. In an ofl-quoted essay first
published in 1991, Appiah wrote: "Postcoloniality is the condition of what we might ungenerously call a comprador intelligentsia: a relatively small, Western-style,
Western-trained group of writers and thinkers, who mediate the trade in cultural
commodities of world capitalism at the periphery" (1997[1991], 62). The belief that "postcolonialism" is a shorthand for Third World criticism and that postcolonial critics are complicit with contemporary capitalism has been advanced by Dirlik in
a comment which he himself has characterized as "partially facetious". In his opinion, postcolonialism begins when "Third World intellectuals have arrived in
First World academe" (1 994, 328). Ahmad insists that the term "postcoloniality"
was never used originally in the context of literature but politics to refer to the postcolonial nation state (1995, 1-20). And finally, Spivak, renowned for her "deconstructive" feminist reading of the canonical text Jane Eyre, has accused
postcoloniallcoloniaI discourse studies of "becoming a substantial subdisciplinary
ghetto" (1 999,l). If anything, these agonisticviewpoints ratify what Moore-Gilbert et al. have to say: "[P]ostcolonialism remains an elusive and contested term. It
designates at one and the same time a chronological moment, a political
20
exact definition difficult" (1997, 1). Arif Dirlik, in the essay already referred to,
cautions that it would be misleading to classify as "postcolonial critics" intellectuals
as politically [and, one might add, methodologically] diverse as Said, Ahmad,
Homi Bhabha and Spivak (1994, 335).
Notwithstanding the highly contentious nature of the discourse, it is now
generally accepted that the term "postcoloniality" is no longer a signifier of
periodicity only but has also come to mean a theoretical perspective from which counter-hegemonic issues such as alterity, race, language, gender, diaspora,
homophobia and marginality are discussed. This thesis sanctions the term
"postcoloniality" as espoused by Mongia (1997, 5-6):
Postcolonial theory foregrounds the legacy of the Enlightenment and
modernity to underscore the significance that this legacy has had for
constructing the conceptual foundations of Western thought. Attempting todismantle Enlightenment certainties, postcolonial theory acknowledges their continuing and residual power [.
.
.] Further, the multiplying constituencies of the First World, together with the cross-disciplinarychallenges posed by contemporary theory, have created the space for a
new opposition. Within this space, postcolonial theory finds a niche in
the Western academy.
Homi Bhabha's definition of the term overlaps with Mongia's: "As a mode of analysis, [postcoloniality] attempts to revise those nationalist or natavist
pedagogies that set up the relation of the Third World and First World in a binary
structure of opposition" (1994, 173). This study also affirms the stance taken by
Moore-Gilbert et al. (1997, 62) who eschew the temptation to promote another
canonical "great tradition" in postcolonial criticism or a kind of multicultural "critical fun-fair, where one can sample the rides as one pleases". They propose, as
to allow commonality and difference to coexist in a manner that challenges many of the assumptions of traditional cultural configurations and their pedagogical
politics (62). The dangers of an uncritical postcolonial standpoint have also been
pointed out by Attridgeand Jolly (1998,l-13), such asthe seduction of Manichean binaries, fetishizing difference, the notion of hybridity [attributed to Bhahba] and
multiculturalism.
Postmodernism can best be defined as Western culture's awareness that it is no longer the unquestioned and dominant centre of the world (Young 1990.19).
Fredric Jameson, alluding to the first half of
Lord
Jim, anticipated a postmodern reading of Conrad (1981, 219). Although Jameson's reading of Lord Jim is asustained Marxist exercise, his concession to postmoderism is prompted by the
self-conscious, self-generating textuality of the first half of the novel. That there
is a positive correlation between the postmodern and the political there is little dispute. Linda Hutcheon (1989, 3) maintains that postmodern art cannot but be
political, at least in its representations which are anything but neutral. This view is in opposition to the commonplace assertion that the postmodern, in its reliance
on pastiche and playfulness, precludes the more serious subject of politics. Contrariwise, Hans Bertens points out: "It cannot escape anybody's notice, for
instance, that important theorists of the postcolonial such as Homi Bhabha,
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Robert Young are deeply indebted to
poststructuralist thought and that there is little, if any, difference between their intellectual and political positions and those of a good many postmodern critics"
(1997,7). If politics (and its coordinates such as race, gender, identity and textual
representation) is a concern of postmodernism, then postcoloniality is its terrain.
Postcolonial criticism may be viewed as a hybrid phenomenon, considering the major influence exercised by various European theories on the practitioners of this
school of thought: Foucault's thesis of powerlknowledge on Said; Lacan's
psychoanalytic theories on Bhabha; and Derrida and deconstructionism on
[olut of the intersection of postmodern and postcolonial discourses,
therefore, emerged a postcolonial criticism which champions in particular those aspects of the postcolonial narrative which particularly appeal to
the theory: its interest in the provisional and fragmentary aspects of signification; its concern with the constructed nature of identity [.
.
.] In short, postcolonial and postmodern critical approaches cross in their concern with marginality, ambiguity, disintegrating binaries, and all thingsparodied, piebald, dual, mimicked, borrowed and second-hand.
Within the theoretical paradigm of postcoloniality/postmodernism, this
research seeks to explore Conrad's representation of racial, cultural, gender and
national identity, not simply in binaristic terms of black vis-a-vis white, but also white vis-a-vis white; not in terms of critical closure, but in terms of contingency
and aporia. An important critical dimension this thesis will endorse is Stuart Hall's
finely calibrated notion of identity formation. According to Hall (1990, 224-226),
there are at least two different ways of thinking about cultural identity. The first position defines identity in terms of one shared culture which reflects common
historical experiences and shared cultural codes. Such a representation of
identity, for example, might be a Caribbean or black diasporic one. This
conception of cultural identity played a crucial role in post-colonial struggles for independence. Although Hall does not mention the word "nationalism", this model
would accord with a nationalistic conception of cultural identity, or Benedict Anderson's imagined community: "It is imagined because the members of even
the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, of
even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion"
(1983, 15). The second view of cultural identity, sanctioned by this thesis, recognizes that despite the many points of similarity in a shared culture, there are
23
identity. In this second sense, identity, far from being a fixed category, is a matter
of becoming as well as of being; it belongs to the future as much as to the past.
As Stuart Hall's theory is germane to this study, it would be apposite to quote him at length:
[Cultural identity] is not something which already exists, transcending
place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from
somewhere, have histories. But like everything which is historical, they
undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some
essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous "play" of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in mere "recovery" of the
past, which is waiting to be found, and which when found, will secure our
sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the
narratives of the past. (Hall 1990, 225)
Hall's proposition flows from his earlier argument that, instead of thinking of
identity as an already accomplished fact, we should think of identity as a
"production' which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within representation. Hall also asserts that we speak and write from a particular
place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific. If, as Hall posits,
identities are names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and
position ourselves within the narratives of the past, then as a corollary it would be apposite in our century to view Conrad's colonialist writings as they speak to us,
not only from the past, but how they speak to us in the space of the present, in
which identities are continually produced and performed by literary artefacts. Finally, an aspect imparting coherence to this research will be that of
intertextuality, a theory first postulated by Bakhtin and subsequently developed by
24
discourage the banal reading of intertextuality as a study of the sources of texts,
Kristeva preferred the term "transposition". She proposes that any text is
constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is an absorption of and a reply to
another text (1
980,36).
Conrad's Malayan works, which constitute a vast fictionalpanorama in which characters and motifs are replicated, are amenable to an
intertextual exploration.
This study comprises six chapters. The purpose of this introductory chapter (Chapter One) has been to delineate the problem statement, literature survey,
aims, thesis statement and method. It has also theorized the notion of a
"postcolonial space" -the central contribution of this research -and the viability of
a postmodernlpostcolonial reading of Joseph Conrad in the early twenty-first
century. In Chapter Two, titled "Configuring Identities: Savages. Simpletons and Others", the focus is on Conrad's portraiture of a vast gallery of characters placed on the margins of empire where they interact with the otherlother. A selection of
his early short fiction, namely "Karain", "An Outpost of Progress", "Falk and "Amy
Foster", forms the backdrop to the rest of this project which explores the nature
of alterity and subject formation. Chapter Three, titled "Race and Miscegenation in Almayer's Folly: A Story of an Eastern River", focuses on the writer's first novel
which offers a rich matrix to explore the problematic of race, gender and cultural
identity. The trope of miscegenation serves to pit one sex against the other, as
well as one race against the other. Through a process of doubling and splitting
characters like Almayer and Dain, Mrs. Almayer and Nina, represent figures
interacting with one another in a colonizer/colonized paradigm. Nina's rejection of her father's culture emblematizes the anti-imperial gesture characteristic of Conrad's Malayan novels.
of the Islands, which extends intertextually the spatiality of racial, cultural and
gender dynamics initiated by Almayer's Folly. Titled "Transgressing Boundaries",
this chapter examines the relationship between Aissa and Willems, who are the alteregos of Nina and Almayer respectively. In this novel Conrad unambiguously
deconstructs the imperial stereotype of the dominant male vis-a-vis the
submissive, native love-interest. In both the early novels, the colonized (native
women) return the gaze of the colonizers (European males) in disturbing ways.
Chapter Five considers Lord Jim and the chronologically problematic The
Rescue. These two novels complete the cycle of intertextuality which integrates the Malayan novels, also known as "The Lingard Trilogy". The thematic rubric of
this chapter, "The Boy's Club, replicates the motif "one of us" which becomes a
refrain in Lord Jim. This motif transfers, in a nuanced way, to The Rescue which
examines Lingard's role as a lover, a friend and a gentleman. Both novels
complement each other in problematizing the idea of what it means, firstly, "to be", and secondly, to be a "gentleman" in an alien society. Woven into the texture of
the novels, are stereotypes of Malays and Europeans which are subjected to
scrutiny and deconstruction. Finally, Chapter Six concludes the project with a summary of the main argument and a reflection on the postcoloniallpostmodern
space in Joseph Conrad in the context of the early twenty-first century.
If Western discourses of race and alterity have engendered the subjectivities
of men like Almayer, Lingard (of Alnjayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands),
Willems and Mr. Travers, then these in turn have produced the counter-discourse of half-caste women such as Nina, Mrs. Almayer and Jewel, and Malays such as
Ai'ssa and Babalatchi. If Conrad has been accused of not giving a voice to the
otherlother in HeartofDarkness, a la Chinua Achebe, then he cannot be accused
of shirking this authorial responsibility in his early works. Tzvetan Todorov, in his
incisive critique of Henry Louis Gates's special edition of Critical Inquiry which
deals with the issues of "race", "writing" and "difference", has reserved his praise
26
perception of 'race' and racism" (1986, 378). This research endorses the
conviction that Conrad, unlike his contemporaries, has not only empathized with
the condition of the otherlother, but also accorded him or her both authority and
agency.
Chinua Achebe's counter-reading of Heart of Darkness has energized much
postcolonial criticism both for and against Conrad. His relentless indictment of Conrad's portrayal of Africans has not only projected Conrad into the popular
imagination as a "bloody racist", but also creates the antithetical space from which
he is interrogated by feminist/postcoloniaI critics such as Padmini Mongia (2001) and Marianna Torgovnick who claims that she is always "repelled" when she reads
Heart of Darkness (1990, 145). Ngugi wa Thiong'o, for whom Conrad was an
early literary model, said in an interview: "With Conrad, I'm impressed by the way
he questions things, re-questions things like action, the morality of action, for
instance" (Duerden and Pieterse 1972, 124). Later, Ngugi was to change his allegiance from Conrad to the Caribbean writer, George Lamming. His reason
was that Conrad "wrote from the centre of the empire [whereas] Lamming wrote from the centre of those struggling against the empire" (Ngugi 1993, 6). This
thesis constitutes not only a rejoinder to the criticism of Achebe and Ngugi, but is also a challenge to those critics who persist in dismissing Conrad as a
Eurocentric, canonical writer - a view typified by the following comment:
[Gllobal expansions of the imperialist venture have met with euphoric
celebrations and justifications in literary works of such widely read writers
as Jane Austen, Dickens, Kipling, and Conrad. The most dismaying irony
is that all these writers have been and are still enthusiastically studied as canonical figures in the disciplines of philosophy, history, and literature
in non-Western as well as Western countries. (Xie 1997, 15)
27
Western writing about the non-Western world a solution would be in the substitution of one discourse for another. Drawing upon the methodology of
Derrida and Kristeva, Spurr suggests the "possibility of a writing that would open itself to the realities of the other" (196). Like Derrida and Kristeva who live both
in and beyond the West, Joseph Conrad situates himself on the outer limits of
Western European culture and writes back to it, both representing the otherlother in terms congenial to the West but at the same time deconstructing these
stereotypical representations in a disconcerting, if not equivocal manner. Whilst
postcoloniality and the language of postmodern theory create the geographical space for others such as Salman Rushdie, Jean Rhys and Gabriel Gar~ia
Marquez to write back to the empire, in Conrad's early texts the theoretical space
for interrogation of subjectivity is "always already there" - to appropriate a phrase from poststructuralist discourse. That these works, whether set in the Far East, or Africa, or the South Seas, should offer the space for an interaction of various
identities is a reflection of half-a-lifetime's experience of alterity Conrad brings to his writings. Peter Firchow (2000, 7) makes this point tellingly in his monograph
on Heart of Darkness:
Given the many years - half a lifetime, practically
-
that Conrad had spent wandering the world in ships or being stranded for weeks in remote places in the Pacific, often sharing close quarters with people from a widevariety of national and ethnic backgrounds, it is not surprising that he should seek to reflect this multinational, multiethnic experience in his
CONFIGURING IDENTITIES: SAVAGES, SIMPLETONS AND OTHERS
The brig's business was on uncivilized coasts, with obscure rajahs dwelling in nearly unknown bays; with native sefflements up mysterious rivers opening their sombre, forest-lined estuaries among a welter of pale green reefs and dazzling sandbanks, in lonely straits of calm blue water all aglitter with sunshine. ("Freya of the Seven Isles", 'Twixt Land and Sea: Three Tales, 170- 171.)
As we look back at the cultural archive, we begin to reread it not univocally but contrapuntally, with a simultaneous awareness both of the metropolitan history that is narrated and those other histories against which
[. . .] the dominating discourse acts. In the counterpoint
of Western classical music, various themes play off one
another [. . .] In the same way, I believe, we can read and
interpret English novels [. . .] whose engagement [. . .]
with the West lndiesor India, say, isshaped and perhaps even determined by the specific history of colonization, resistance, and finally native nationalism. (Edward Said 1994 [1993], 59-60)
Falk had to eat the uneatable, and in so doing he discovers the radical relativity of cultural categories; the narrator has to speak the unspeakable, and in so doing he encounters the insoluble problernatics of utterance. (Tony Tanner 1976.36)
Although the focus of this chapter will be Conrad's early short fiction, namely
